A pair of museum directors have resurrected a favourite Toronto art world dream: A Toronto Biennial. Now what?

David Liss, left, artistic director of the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art and Gregory Burke, director of The Power Plant pose near the corner of Queen's Quay and Bathurst near the old Canada Malting Plant.

Last month, David Liss and Gregory Burke, the directors of the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art and The Power Plant, respectively, convened a daylong forum on one of the city’s favourite — and many — unrequited dreams: The possibility of a homegrown, international art biennial celebration, right here in Toronto.

More than 200 people packed MOCCA for the day; a who’s who of high-profile players in the local art scene convened on panels, and the spirit, Liss says, was encouragingly positive. So now what?

“That’s the thing,” Liss said recently. “We’ve opened this can of worms, and we need to take the next step. We’re just not quite sure what it is.”

A little momentum boost is due next week, when Peggy Gale circulates a detailed report of the day’s proceedings. Burke, for his part, plans to spend the next little while canvassing for intelligence among locals who have travelled this road with some success — the Toronto International Film Festival, for instance, which grew from somebody’s good idea to the second-biggest in the world.

At the same time, Liss and Burke are aware they’re travelling scorched earth: The idea of a Toronto Biennial has been kicking around art circles since at least the 1980s, when Harbourfront Centre CEO Bill Boyle, then with a group called Visual Arts Ontario, toyed with a plan for a sculpture biennial that would see the city littered with public art every couple of years.

But with a host of culture power brokers out to play — Art Gallery of Ontario director Matthew Teitelbaum, though noncommittal to the museum’s potential role, was on a panel; Luminato chief Janice Price was, too, along with AGYU director Philip Monk and Canada’s most recent Venice Biennale curator, Barbara Fischer — this time, most would admit, was a little different.

Even so, the task of translating goodwill into a tangible plan of attack — let alone an actual event — is no mean process. “People were talking about this five years ago, when I first arrived,” Burke said. “It’s one of those things that keeps resurfacing, but to no net effect.”

But the idea has staying power, which can maybe attributed to a mild case of biennial envy: In the past decade, dozens of biennials have popped up all over the world, from Singapore to Beijing to New Orleans to Liverpool. Alberta runs a provincial triennial, and so does the province of Quebec. Montreal has its and Quebec City have their own modest versions; closer to home, so do Kitchener-Waterloo and Windsor.

Toronto’s absence at the table in both conspicuous and a little perplexing: In the country’s most productive, populated centre for art and artists, there remains relatively little visibility for their work. (It’s worth noting that, maybe in response to all this, a small group of grassroots artists launched their own vision of a Toronto Biennale last year, which so far consists of a one-page website.)

And then, there’s that small matter of a another event, just down the road, that’s been giving artists here the platform they’ve been missing at home since 2005. This September marks the third installation of “Beyond/In Western NY,” Buffalo’s regional art biennial that — by necessity, maybe — takes in Toronto as part of its mandate. As a result, a third of the artists showing in Buffalo this year are from here.

If it seems odd that, for all the apparent interest, Buffalo would get there first, consider: Buffalo’s Albright Knox Gallery, a longtime player on the international contemporary art circuit, has been the anchor of the event since the get-go. Around it cluster virtually all of Buffalo’s art institutions in a kind of local, collaborative art-world love-in Toronto hasn’t seen in decades, if ever. (The Art Gallery of Ontario, while happy to “facilitate” the biennial discussion, Teitelbaum said, had no intention of getting involved.)

“For us it would be really easy to completely ignore the community,” says Louis Grachos, the Albright Knox’s director, who just happens to be from Toronto. “But I don’t think you can be a thriving institution without being engaged with your surroundings. And that’s why this works.”

Still, Burke’s intentions are a little grander. “If Toronto is to do a biennial, its ambitions have to be big, not small,” he says. Part and parcel of that, of course, is who pays for it.” (“That did come up,” Liss shrugs.)

And there are, of course, deeper concerns than the practical ones. “Our position is one of sincere hope,” said Daniel Borins, a Toronto artist who, with partner Jennifer Marman, have worked their way to prominence in recent years. “We can’t keep living in this Bizarro world, where artists here work on the level of what’s being produced internationally, but never get recognized here.”

Indeed, the air of general indifference institutions here have had towards their homegrown talent is a bridge badly in need of rebuilding. “It’s a recurrent theme, how the artistic community has a very hard time being recognized here, and it’s not for lack of talent,” said Jessica Bradley, a former curator of contemporary art at both the National Gallery and the AGO.

Bradley, who owns her own gallery here now, doesn’t see a biennial necessarily as an antidote. “Maybe just, ‘Oh yes, let’s have a biennial,’ is too simple,” she said. “I think you have to build the case very strongly first: How do we project am image of artistic vitality — because there’s no question it’s here — and connect that to the rest of the world?”

Burke pins some hope on the lingering goodwill — writing on Canadianart.ca, Richard Rhodes noted the forum was reminiscent of the friendly, community-minded art gatherings of the ’80s — knowing full well nothing moves forward without some committed collaboration. “Going forward, we need to retain that,” Burke says. “If this is going to work, no one institution can own it.”

The task remains daunting, but a little momentum can go a long way, Liss said. “Everyone’s up to their eyeballs in their own day-to-day,” he said. “But if there’s an authentic vision and desire for something? Call me the eternal optimist, but anything’s possible.”

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